Iran to let BBC in for ‘special report’

An Iranian government official says the Islamic Republic will allow some BBC journalists to report there for a week’s time, loosening restrictions on a news organization often vilified in local media, amid signs of warming diplomatic ties to Britain.

Islamic Culture and Guidance Ministry spokesman Hossein Nooshabadi tells The Associated Press that a team of BBC journalists will be allowed to report. He says the BBC’s Persian-language service was still banned there.

“The permission is only for one week time for a special report,” based on a BBC World Service request, Nooshabadi says. “The permission for activity and producing is for the report by the English-language BBC, while observing all laws and regulations” of the country.

Iran stopped the BBC’s Persian service from operating in the country in 2009, later expelling a World Service journalist during turmoil surrounding its disputed 2009 presidential election.

The BBC says it has had no word from the Iranian government on the decision, though one of its international correspondents has said she recently spent a day in Tehran.

— AP